All I need to know about life

A number of years ago there was a book titled All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It highlighted some of the basic life lessons many of us learned as children, such as: share everything; play fair; don’t hit people; put things back where you found them; be aware of wonder; hold hands and stick together; and so on.

I would like to say that all I need to know I learned from United Methodist Camp and Retreat Ministries in the Philadelphia Area. In the Eastern PA Conference we have Carson-Simpson Farm Christian Center, Gretna Glen Camp and Retreat Center, Innabah Program Center and Pocono Plateau Camp and Retreat Center. In the Peninsula-Delaware Conference we have the Pecometh Camp and Retreat Ministries.

All of them teach essential lessons that lives of faith can offer. In the Christian community modeled at our camps people—especially young people—learn:

• how to share, both in giving and receiving generosity; 
• how to respect people and value diversity; 
• how to seek fairness and reject violence; 
• how to appreciate and care for our bodies, our souls and all of Creation; and 
• how to “hold hands and stick together” even with people who may think and feel differently from us. 

Campers learn about the wonders of nature as they share time in the woods, in a lake, at the river, on a mountain. Campers hear Jesus Christ’s wonderful words of life and are invited to accept Christ as Savior and Lord. Some, like many before them, receive and accept their call to serve in ministry and mission at camp. It is a place where we learn all we need to know.

This summer I was privileged to visit three camps. I got to see the wonderful Grandparent and Grandchildren Camp at Innabah and the Day Camp program at Carson Simpson, where sign language was taught and Deaf visitors who attend Lighthouse Fellowship UMC in Glenside came to see the young people sign songs.

I also took part in a new camp at Pecometh where Deaf children and their parents came for a family retreat, as well as a weeklong Deaf Adult Group Home camp. All of these camps were full of joy and activity, of people learning and sharing with one another, valuing diversity and appreciating who they were and whose they were.

The giftedness and grace of campers, along with selfless volunteers and staff, can create in these special settings, during these special times, personal and community wholeness. Experiencing worship and learning stories of Jesus here can change lives and reach the hearts of young people who may not otherwise attend our churches on Sundays.

This is really important ministry; and I urge all of our congregations to support our Camp and Retreat Centers generously with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your enthusiastic witness. They are God’s special place apart, where we share the life and light of Christ to make disciples and transform lives.